A FOUNDATION TAKES OVER THE WORLD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 19, 23 January 1937, Page 25

A FOUNDATION TAKES OVER THE WORLD

It looks as though "The World Foundation" ought to take up the Wellsian idea of a World Encyclopaedia. For the object of the World Foundation is "the intelligent organisation of life on this planet," says the Syaney "Sunday Sun" London correspondent. This is the idea behind the World Encyclopaedia of Mr. Wells. Whether he and the sponsors of the World Foundation have the same view of what is intelligent organisation is another matter. As the first step, the World Foundation has invited persons in sympathy with its general aims to become either associate or contributing members. You can become an associate member, taking part in the work of the local centres and receiving general information about its activities for 4s, or one dollar, a year. Contributing members receive the literature of the foundation, including printed copies of the studies, and may attend the yearly conferences. This costs £5 or 25 dollars a year. I think I will be an associate member. If you pay for five years in advance you will receive the badge of the Foundation, in either case, apparently. The addresses of the committee are Dane's Inn House, The Strand, London, or 50 East 58th Street, New York. The members of the committee represent both sides of the Atlantic. They are Lord Allen, of Hurtwood (British Labour peer); Lord Lytton (who reported on Manchukuo); Sir Norman Angell (publicist and pacifist); W. Arnold-Forster; Sir Max J.. Bonn (merchant banker); Gugliemo Ferrero (Italian historian); W. E. Hocking; G. A. Johnston (chief of section in the

International Labour Office, Geneva); Commander Stephen King-Hall, R.N., retired (writer and broadcaster); Thomas Mann (the German novelist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature); F. Maurette; Gilbert Murray (translator of Euripides and brother of Sir Hubert); E. J. Phelan; H. S. Polalc; Jules Romains; Sir Arthur Salter (economist and candidate for Oxford); Arnold Joseph Toynbee (director of Studies in the Royal Institute for International Affairs); Ray Lyman Wilbur and Don Salvador de Madariaga (Spanish permanent delegate to the League of Nations). Senor Madariaga is chairman. The two main tasks are: (1) Research and study. (2) Dissemination and education. The first department will study: (a) World economic organisation; (b) world financial organisation; (c) distribution of population; problems of overpopulation and under-population, resulting in conflicts and economic problems; (d) world political organisation. As a final note of optimism the little pamphlet on the World Foundation, printed by the Oxford University Press, says:— "The above proposals require abun-l dant funds, and a team of men with the J knowledge experience and moral authority necessary to put them (the funds) to a fertile use. The sponsors of this scheme feel confident that the funds will be forthcoming and that the needed men will not fail to respond to the call of the world community." Given funds enough there need be no doubt about the response to the call. As the Onregenerate say: "Money talks."